cynicated.com

It used to be that walking around a grocery store (or any other retail outlet), children in carts were playing with toys, sucking on pacifiers and generally amusing themselves with age appropriate toys.  Occasionally, you’d see the daring parent hand their keys over to their child to give them a chance to play with sharp, pointy, metal objects for a few minutes while they checked out.  These techniques seem to make sense.  So long as you kid doesn’t set off the your car alarm, or stab themselves in the eye, or heaven forbid loose your keys, you’re pretty much laughing.

However, there is apparently a whole new realm of child entertainment devices in the form of cell phones — the iPhone being at the top of the list.  Yes.  That’s right.  Parents are using their expensive smart phone to entertain their children.

Check this out!  This is a 1 year old child being taught to use the iPhone.  And what’s more, it’s opened up a whole new market of application development!  Slate columnist Michael Agger even went so far as to post a list of the best iPhone apps for your children!

While I may take offense to the idea of giving a child i-Gun Lite to play (a realistic gun simulator), and I think that such apps as Fart for Free is probably not a good choice, many other options exist!

I’m not sure whether I’m horrified that we’ve come to the point that children need constant entertainment, or simply wondering why rattles and keys were good enough for us growing up.  Are kids today just that much smarter that they need a small computer to be happy?